AirExpo offers a chance to get up close and see a wide variety of aircraft. There are also vendors and displays, children’s activities, B-17 rides, antique aircraft and helicopter rides and a chance to meet aviation pioneers and heroes.

“I look at it as a community fair, that just happens to have an aviation theme,” added Jasperson.

As usual, a venerable who’s who of aviation will attend, this year including NASA space shuttle astronaut and mission commander Curt Brown and Korea F-86 ace Boots Blesse.

Also attending will be Doolittle Raiders ****** Cole and Tom Griffin, Jim Hill and Tom Emrich of the Black Sheep Squadron, Luftwaffe ace Gottfried Dulias, Tuskegee Airmen Joseph Gomer and Kenneth O. Wofford, Elizabeth Strohfus of the WASPs, Chuck DeBellevue, top U.S. ace from Vietnam and many others.

Attendance has ranged from a high of 15,000 four years ago, to about 3,000 last year, when steady rain throughout grounded all of the aircraft.

They’re right about last year, when it was so crappy and cold we didn’t even bother going even though I was psyched.

AirExpo2008 will be held at Flying Cloud Airport from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 16 and 17. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children 8 to-12 and free for children younger than 8. More info here.

I was on my to work this morning when I saw a group of protestors on the side of the road. I’ll confess, I only circled back because they had rainbow flags. Turns out they weren’t rainbows for The Ghey, they were for rainbows for Make Love Not Bumbs.

This group of 30 or 40 spry retirees was conducting the weekly protest of ATK (formerly Alliant Techsystems). ATK is our friendly neighborhood purveyor of land mines and cluster bombs.

Strangely coincidentally, as I pulled up to the circle I saw an acquaintance of mine. She mentioned that they do this every week, and I it occurred to me that I’d actually heard of this activity before. I’d not seen them at this location in my year of commuting in this direction. I’m wondering if they rotate, or if ATK is putting folks in this newly constructed building.

Umbria has Gourmet Pizzeria locations in Eagan, Eden Prairie, and Blaine, and a Cucina Italiana in Plymouth. I can’t speak for the quality of the Cucina (nor can I recommend a trip to Blaine), but I really liked the Thai Shrimp pizza. The toppings were good but the crust is what I really loved. Not too thick, not too thin. Crispy around the edges and still soft in the middle.

Seriously, really good pizza. It’s not Domino’s cheap — $20 for a 10″ pizza and a caesar salad — but it was worth the price. That’s about what you’d pay at Pizza Luce. So when I can’t get into the city for my Luce fix (Luce is easily my favorite pizza place in town), I’ll walk down the block to Umbria.

P.S. You can order online for delivery or takeout. I haven’t actually tried that yet, but it can’t be worse than every time I’ve tried to order Domino’s online (I ended up calling every time).